I am a Senior Creative with an acute eye for detail and experience in direction and management of high profile projects for Sky, the UK’s leading FTSE 30 media company. Leading Technical Design and implementation of innovative solutions for a variety of projects involving pre-rendered 3D VFX and live to air real-time technologies. 

 

Experience

Senior Designer: Sky Creative (Sky Sports/ Sports News)

Leading the design and implementation of the biggest and newest rebrand of Sky Sports News to date. Focusing on the channel branding, the innovative new addition Sky Sports News wall and live data driven title sequences fed from the digital platforms. The Sky Sports News wall is a fantastic new tool used to direct viewers to the vast range of content, products and channels that Sky has to offer. Boasting live feeds from multiple channels across sky and weaving them amongst digital content from around the company. Utilising a back end API / CMS that allows the editorial teams to aggregate and bring together data and information from the range of apps, websites and social media outlets that Sky has to offer. These can then be intermingled with live video, clips and promotional content generated from the creative and editorial teams through the use of transitional logic.

 

3D VFX Ford Monday Night Football (Sky Sports)

Enlisted to deliver the IBC award nominated Ford Monday Night Football (MNF) Virtual Studio. Producing a photoreal, real-time virtual environment for the MNF studio in which presenters could stand and interact with the 3D graphical elements around them. Using Softimage, Vizrt and Motion Analysis to produce a seamless juxtaposition of real and virtual. 

 

3D VFX Artist: Sky Creative (Sky News)

Responsible for managing both large scale and short turn around projects for both pre-rendered and real-time output, taking projects from concept through to broadcast. Creating seamless juxtapositions of live content with pre rendered graphics in examples such as the Sky News “Top of the hour” sequence. A live and updateable title sequence driven by feeds from the website and the Sky News apps, played out live every hour and updated instantly with the latest content from the digital platforms. Responsible for the management, direction and implementation of pipelines between 3D build packages and real-time games engine output. Experienced with render pipelines for Softimage XSI using both Mental-Ray and Arnold for pre rendered sequences and composition. Also experienced in rendermapping and texture baking for real-time output.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Phil for all he has contributed to the evolution of the design team and our channel, and I would like to say that personally it has been an absolute pleasure managing him throughout his time in News.”
— Brent Jones, Sky News 3D VFX Manager

Key Responsibilities

  • Project management / system architecture, planning and technical implementation across multiple platforms and channels
  • Research, development and innovation
  • Presenting to Senior Executives within Sky
  • 3D parametric and surface modelling, rigging animation and rendering
  • Delivering projects to stringent and highly pressured deadlines
  • Managing sub contract design personnel
     
  • Validating designs against client specifications
  • Idea generation and conceptualisation
  • Meeting cost targets
  • Post project reviewing to streamline workflow into next project
  • Implementation of changes needed from workflow analysis
  • Scripting functionality for real-time systems
  • Transitional Logic builds

Software